


the heart and the fist

by ishta



Series: the arrow and the aim [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 13:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishta/pseuds/ishta
Summary: ‘Her name’s Tessa, she’s moving here from London,’ Kaitlyn told him. Scott shrugged.‘As long as she can move in quick and start paying rent, go for it.’-or, scott had a bad history with love





	the heart and the fist

**Author's Note:**

> hello i'm alive!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> I honestly don't even know. I don't know if I ever intended for this to have a sequel, but here we are. Not sure if I'll write anymore little bits for it either, but you never know. Absolutely not proofread at all, happy days,

It wasn’t until a few weeks after they had started sleeping together that the topic was broached.

 

-

 

It had been a quiet night in for the three of them. Kaitlyn had brought home Turkish food after class, and they had all sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor of the living room (Kaitlyn in the middle, because she hates being the third wheel for a movie night in her own home, _thank you very_ much) watching an old episode of Jeopardy and shouting the answers at the television.

Tessa was winning, of course. She kept a neat tally on her phone, in the Notes app, as she did every night they found themselves competing the quiz show in front of the screen. Generally, the losers made the winners breakfast in the morning. It was a good thing Tessa was a hopeless cook; she never had to make breakfasts.

 

-

 

Tessa loved how easy this was. Her initial anxieties over seeing one of her housemates had been diminished with Kaitlyn’s blessing and Scott’s general ability to ease any stress in her life. When she got home from work exhausted, he somehow instinctively knew whether she needed a hug and a coffee, or whether she needed space to relax. When she got home from the physio, he always had a scalding hot bath run for her, and an open bottle of red.

Likewise, Tessa came to recognise the signs of Scott’s exhaustion, coming to learn that, at least for the most past, his stress levels could be almost immediately calmed with a cold bottle of Red Racer.

It was these little habits that Tessa realised she probably wouldn’t have learnt if they hadn’t been living together from the start. It was kind of nice, she thought, being (secretly) in love with your housemate/best friend.

 

-

 

 

It was later that same night, when Kaitlyn had nudged them both as a goodnight, and lifted herself into her room to collapse into bed, when Scott had pulled Tessa to her feet and led them to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

They stood side by side brushing their teeth. He made eye contact with her and gave her a tiny grin, the most he could with a toothbrush occupying most of his mouth. Her eyes crinkled in return, and she ducked her chin slightly.

When they were both done, Scott turned to face her, lightly running his fingers through the long ends of her hair, which had grown out substantially over summer. She made a mental note to tell him later that she hated having her hair played with, but she let it go for now, appreciating the soft smile on his face. She followed him into his bedroom, accepting a t-shirt he held up for her to sleep in.

She’d adopted quite a few of his t-shirts this way – never before had she adorned so much red and white. She could tell he loved when she slipped his ‘Home is Canada’ shirt over her head. _She_ loved it. It smelt like him, and was soft against her skin. She especially loved it when he took it back off and threw it carelessly on the floor as they made their way to bed.

But tonight wasn’t one of those nights, apparently. Instead, Scott wrapped his arms around her after she’d pulled the shirt over her head. It was too tender, too soft, for clothes-ripping tonight.

Tessa pulled away, smiling gently, and pulling back the covers to his bed.

(Until they’d started this _thing_ , Scott had never made his own bed. It wasn’t for lacking of anyone to impress, it was just a general never feeling like he needed to do it. What’s the point if you’re going to sleep in it again in twelve hours anyway? But since Tessa, Scott’s bed had been made every morning after they’d slept in it. Scott meant to ask her why she felt the need to make his bed every day, but she seemed to get some genuine, bizarre, pleasure out of doing it. So he just let her, no questions asked.)

He slid in beside her and held his arm up for her to curl into. She did, as she did most nights now.

She curled in, facing away from him; the smaller spoon. As his other arm came around her waist to pull her securely against him, he heard her faintly murmur something into the pillow.

‘What was that?’ he asked into the shell of her ear.

‘Love you,’ she replied, her voice slightly wobbling.

-

 

Scott froze. He tried to pretend he didn’t, but he knew Tessa must have felt his arm tense around her; his sharp intake of breath.

They hadn’t said _anything_ about love.

 

-

 

Scott had a bad history with love.

 

-

 

His first love: ice hockey. Growing up Moir meant growing up on ice. And Scott could never remember a time when he didn’t love hockey. He trained on skates nearly every day of his childhood, the family rink making it easy and affordable. He practised ducking and weaving and stopping and starting. He could do axles in hockey skates as neatly as his figure skates.

His additional figure skating training meant that he was generally more talented on the ice than all of his junior teammates, who spent more time looking down at their own skates than on the game in front of them. But when those same kids got the hang of the skating, they began to overshadow Scott in every other way.

See, Scott never quite had the size of a hockey player, at least not until he hit 23. (About 10 years too late). Nor did Scott, frankly, have the reservation and the patience to follow his coach’s plays. It wasn’t necessarily about a lack of respect; Scott just _knew more about hockey_ than any of the dumb high schoolers assigned to coach the junior Ilderton team.

It didn’t go down well. He was regularly benched.

Ice hockey just didn’t love Scott back.

 

-

 

Upon realising this, Scott immediately quit hockey, refusing to be a failure at anything. He took up other sports; basketball, baseball, even tennis briefly. Nothing stuck. He’d never love anything the same way he loved hockey.

He threw himself into his figure skating training, training four to five mornings a week while in high school.

Scott’s second love: figure skating.

He was good. Incredible, even. ‘ _A prodigy on ice’_ , wrote one local reporter, who had let themselves into one of his solo practise sessions. Scott loved being good at things.

The problem was that Scott hated _performing_. And in a sport that is wholly based on its performance aspect, this was a fairly major problem to have. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was a genuine hatred of performing, but Scott’s ability to skate completely diminished in the face of a competition.

He also hated the loneliness of the sport, training alone in a cold rink on a January morning was just a sad way to spent a teenage morning. And soon, his love for figure skating began to fade. A lack of accomplishment in the sport bored him, and, no matter how good he was at it, he found it hard to sustain interest in something that he couldn’t prove to others he was good at.

Scott fell out of love with figure skating after high school.

 

-

 

He never really wanted to go to college. What would he do there? And his parents were fine with that, really. As long as he gets a job, they’d said.

Which, of course, sent him spiralling into another slump. Entirely unskilled to enter any kind of work force, Scott spent a few months after school finished bumming around shovelling snow for the seniors of Ilderton for a bit of pocket money.

Until his aunt asked him to fill-in teaching a class of littlies at the rink while she was out of town for a few days.

He fell in love anew.

Watching five and six year olds frown at their skates while they tried to push their clumsy selves forward on the ice enamoured Scott. He fell in love with watching them improve, watching them fall over and pull themselves back up and try again. They were high-spirited and determined, everything Scott wished he’d been when he was younger.

He took as many classes as his schedule would allow; tiny tykes, to high schoolers. He had all the know-how, could execute it perfectly for his students to replicate. He wasn’t alone on the ice.

He _loved_ it.

And, well, teaching seemed to be the first thing to love Scott back.

A rink in Toronto called him a year later, offering him a very generous amount of money to relocate and teach kids there. Enough of Scott’s students had moved to Toronto to train that it was an easy decision for him.

It was there that he met Kaitlyn, a quirky fellow-teacher, who took tiny three-year-olds by the hand and pulled them across the ice slowly and carefully, inventing songs and dances to celebrate when they made a full lap of the rink without slipping over.

They hit it off almost immediately.

And, two years later, when they both worked out they needed a new place to stay, they answered an ad in the paper posted by a girl called Cassandra, about their age, who needed two roommates for an ideally placed apartment in downtown Toronto.

 

-

 

Tessa was gone in the morning when Scott woke up. Now _that_ had never happened before. She usually needed a lot of work to get out bed in the morning, maybe a bit of coffee to coax her into the shower. Scott couldn’t even remember falling asleep, sitting stressfully on the two words muttered by Tessa before she started snoring the night previous. He must’ve nodded off for a bit, though, for her to have disappeared on him.

Checking his phone on his bedside, he saw a short message send 25 minutes ago:

_‘went for run, B back with tims – T’_

Sighing, he flopped back onto the bed. It was freezing outside, and it was a Sunday. Who went for a run on a Sunday?

 

-

 

Moving in with Cassie was a stress-free process. She was around quite a bit, but was tidy and friendly.

She studied acting at the same university as Kaitlyn, and they seemed to get along quite well too. There’s something to be said about the bond forged between fellow students around exam time.

It wasn’t for a few months when Scott and Cassie ended up sleeping together one night. Both were tired, both were sick of being single. It was easy, local.

It wasn’t for a few months after that when Cassie decided she was destined for Hollywood fame. She left them both in the lurch with an extra room to pay for. Scott got a quick kiss and a short, ‘doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Scotty!’, before she was out of the apartment, out of Scott’s life, out of the country.

Scott just sighed, and picked up a bartending gig at the local pub. Kaitlyn didn’t have time for a second job, and someone had to pick up the slack.

 

-

 

Two months later, Kaitlyn got a call from a girl from university whose friend needed a room.

‘Her name’s Tessa, she’s moving here from London,’ Kaitlyn told him. Scott shrugged.

‘As long as she can move in quick and start paying rent, go for it.’

 

-

 

Scott was standing by the television when Tessa got back holding three coffees and a bag of pastries. She dropped them on the counter and headed straight to the bathroom, not even looking up to meet his eyes.

 

-

 

Kaitlyn piled a plate full of pastries and took it back to her room, her ear firmly stuck to her phone. Tessa came out of her room freshly showered, wearing a pale blue fluffy robe tied firmly around her waist.

She shyly looked up at him, sitting at the table patiently nursing a coffee and waiting for her to return before he started eating.

‘Good morning,’ he said softly.

‘Good morning,’ she replied, matching his tone. ‘You look like shit.’

He scoffed a laugh. ‘Didn’t sleep well, I guess.’

‘Yeah.’

They both picked at cinnamon rolls slowly, awkwardly.

‘Tess, I - ’

‘Look, it - ’

They both stopped and shut their mouth. He waved his hand, gesturing for her to go first.

‘I made this awkward, Scott. I’m sorry. Well, I guess I’m not because you’re the awkward one now, so you should be sorry, really, but we were going so well and I had to just be stupid and tired and say… _that_ … and…yeah’ she trailed off, her eyes darting to somewhere behind Scott on the wall.

‘Tess… don’t be sorry. Please.’

Her eyes found his again.

‘Let’s just…’ his gaze darted over to Kaitlyn’s door, slightly ajar. She was still on the phone, her voice wafting out into the living area. ‘Talk. Somewhere privately.’

She nodded and stood up, nodding her head in the direction of her room. It was the furthest one away from Kaitlyn’s.

 

-

 

Scott can’t really remember being in love with a woman. He loves his mother, obviously. And he loves his Aunt Carol. He loves Kaitlyn, too; the most loyal and trustworthy friend he thinks he’s ever had.

He certainly didn’t love Cassie. She was fun, and things were cool and breezy and comfortable. That’s not love, he thinks.

But Tessa? Beautiful Tessa who sits at the breakfast bar with glasses perched on her nose doing the daily crossword? Tessa who insists on dusting every surface of the apartment weekly, even though it sends her into a fit of sneezes? Tessa, who brings him a beer whenever he is feeling remotely stressed about work? The same Tessa who curls up next to him in bed, wearing one of his t-shirts, her thick hair still damp from her evening shower?

He thinks he could really love that girl.

 

-

 

‘If this is a serious relationship talk right now Scott Moir, then I am going to preface it with you not being allowed to dump me until you pay me back the money you owe me for covering your part of the electricity bill last month’.

She was frowning slightly, a vision of long curls sitting atop sky blue.

He blinked at her. ‘Are you angry?’

‘Not yet,’ she said, curtly, crossing her arms over her chest.

He stepped towards her in the middle of her bedroom and tugged lightly at her arms. ‘Don’t be angry, kiddo, please.’

She looked at him patiently and he cursed. Nobody could defeat Tessa Virtue in a staring match.

‘Why did you leave this morning?’

She looked up at him, their height difference more pronounced when she was barefoot.

‘I wanted to go for a run,’ she said.

‘Bullshit, T. When have you ever _willingly_ gotten up on a Sunday. Today is sleep-in day.’

‘I didn’t want to be lazy.’

He gave her a look that screamed _get real_. She sighed, slumping onto the edge of her bed.

‘I felt awkward. I screwed things up last night. I meant to say… I’m enjoying this, _us_ , so much, Scott. I don’t…’ she trailed off, worrying her thumbnail between her teeth.

He knelt in front of her, his hands coming up to rest over her elbows.

‘Tessa, don’t feel awkward. You screwed up _nothing_ , okay?’

She didn’t say anything, just looked at him warily.

‘You seriously thought I was going to dump you? T, seriously?’

She shrugged, shutting her eyes to avoid his eye contact. ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’

His hands came up to cup her cheeks.

‘Tessa, I love this, what we’re doing. So, so much. And I think I love you. But I’ll level with you, I’m just not quite sure what that feels like. But I think I do, and - ’

He was cut off by her kissing his cheek lightly, and running her fingers into his hair.

‘You don’t have to say it back, Scott. You can just know, that I _do -_ ’ she dropped her voice to a whisper here, ‘ _love_ you’.

Her voice returned to normal. ‘No big deal. Wait until you’re sure, it’s fine.’.

‘I think, if I lost you, it would be the same as if I couldn’t skate anymore,’ he said, with a short nod to emphasise its truth.

He ran his hands gently up her bare calves, coming to rest on her knees. She closed her eyes at the sensation, tilting her head forward slightly. He leaned up to nuzzle his nose into her cheek.

He knew they were fine, just like that.

‘You know what we didn’t do last night?’ Scott murmured into her skin after a few moments.

Tessa leaned back and levelled him with a look through narrowed eyes. Then she promptly reached for the hem of his shirt and pressed her lips firmly to his.

**Author's Note:**

> No I haven't forgotten about meet you there, but I'm feeling very uninspired at the moment. I graduated in the last week so maybe I'll have more time in January, and also maybe I won't. Stay tuned for more indecisive content.
> 
> Comment & review please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love attention!!!!!!!!


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